This invention relates generally to defibrillators, and more specifically to portable, automated external defibrillators having a user interface for automatically providing an untrained rescuer with visual and aural instructions for performing emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation therapy.
The probability of surviving a heart attack depends on the speed with which appropriate medical care is provided to the person experiencing the heart attack. To decrease the response time to a patient suffering a heart attack, it has been recognized that those persons who are typically first to arrive at the scene of a medical emergency, including medical technicians (EMTs), firefighters, police and the public (hereinafter collectively referred to as xe2x80x9cfirst respondersxe2x80x9d) should be provided with portable, automated external defibrillators (AEDs). A first responder equipped with an AED will have a greater likelihood of successfully treating the patient than those who arrive later at the scene. An AED designed for first responder use would therefore improve the overall success rate of treating heart attack patients.
Because the probability of surviving a heart attack depends on the speed with which appropriate medical care is provided to the patient, the American Heart Association (AHA) promotes the following xe2x80x9cChain of Survivalxe2x80x9d guidelines:
(1) Early access to emergency medical service (EMS), such as by activating an emergency response system;
(2) Early CPR initiated by a rescuer to help the patient survive until more advanced care arrives;
(3) Early defibrillation; and
(4) Early application of advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), such as airway management, drugs, etc.
With the exception of item number 4, all of the above guidelines can be performed by a first responder with minimal or no training, if provided with sufficient instruction while at the scene.
Even if the first responder does have some basic training in device operation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), he or she may forget this basic training during the stress of reacting to a heart attack. With wider deployment of AEDs in homes and public venues, the minimally trained or even untrained use of defibrillation devices will increase. Although some devices already exist for providing CPR prompting and automatic defibrillation therapy, these devices rely on several hours of training experience and verbal cueing for the rescuer to follow. In addition, visual prompting of CPR and defibrillation instructions is achieved only through readable text prompts. Success is diminished due to having to rely on memory recall of CPR and other training protocols. Even retraining and certification every two years is inadequate to ensure proper administration of CPR and defibrillation therapy.
Consequently, a defibrillator is needed which is capable of successfully directing precise instructions to a first responder with minimal or no training through a cardiorespiratory event, i.e., CPR as well as AED device operation, by use of visual and aural instructions. The defibrillator should be as simple and user friendly as possible so as to remove any impediment to use by a rescuer with minimal or no training. Further, the defibrillator should be programmable so as to comply with any changes in the standard protocols for CPR and AED operation.
In accordance with the present invention, a defibrillator including a user interface for providing a rescuer with instructions for deploying the defibrillator and administrating CPR to a patient is provided. The user interface includes a visual output device for providing the rescuer with visual instructions for deploying the defibrillator and administering CPR to the patient, an aural output device for providing the user with aural CPR and defibrillation instructions, and a user input mechanism for enabling the user to input responses to the visual and aural instructions. The visual and aural output devices of the user interface may also provide the user with visual and aural instructions for notifying an emergency response system of the medical emergency. The visual instructions provided by the visual output device can be animated illustrations, textual prompts, etc., while the aural instructions may be audible tones, verbal prompts, etc. In addition, the user input mechanism may enable the user to skip or repeat instructions. The user input mechanism may be a voice recognition module or a user activated switch or actuator.
In accordance with further aspects of the invention, the defibrillator includes a processing unit coupled to the visual and aural output devices for executing program code stored in memory which generates the emergency notification instructions, CPR instructions and defibrillator operation instructions on the visual and aural output devices. The emergency notification instructions cause the defibrillator to either establish a communication link directly with an emergency response system or cause the defibrillator to instruct the user to notify the emergency response system. The CPR instructions, on the other hand, instruct the user to deliver an appropriate number of breaths and chest compressions to a patient. The defibrillator operation instructions instruct the user to attach the defibrillation electrodes of the defibrillator to the patient and notify the rescuer when a shockable heart rhythm has been detected. In accordance with other aspects of the invention, the memory also stores program code which generates patient assessment instructions which instruct the user to check the patient""s breathing and pulse.
In accordance with yet other aspects of the present invention, a method and a computer-executable user interface component are described which provide instructions to a user operating the defibrillator.